Transgender on trial

In March this year judges gave permission for Keira Bell, and a woman known as ‘Mrs A’ to bring a case against the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) clinic at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust. Bell is a former patient of the clinic.Born female, she had a long-term desire to transition and had ‘no doubt’ she wanted to become a boy. ‘I wanted to go onto the medical pathway as soon as possible,’ she says. ‘I was very eager, and I was very reluctant about speaking to anyone who would possibly get in the way of that’. [1] But she now regrets her decision and thinks ‘it’s up to these institutions, like the Tavistock, to step in and make children reconsider what they are saying because it is a life-altering path.’ [2] She was referred to the Tavistock Centre at the age of 16 and was prescribed puberty blockers. A year later she was prescribed the male hormone testosterone. In 2017 she had a double mastectomy but now, aged 23, she regrets her decision, and feels she should have been challenged more by clinicians.

‘Mrs A’ is the mother of a 15-year-old autistic girl who is currently on the waiting list for treatment at the Tavistock centre. Mrs A has ‘deep concerns’ that her daughter will be placed on ‘an experimental treatment path that is not adequately regulated, where there are insufficient safeguards, where her autism will not be properly accounted for and where no-one (let alone my daughter) understands the risks and therefore [the clinic] cannot ensure informed consent is obtained.’ [3]

Meanwhile, in Oxford, ‘a teenage girl has applied for judicial review over official school guidance that says she should share changing rooms, lavatories and residential dormitories with trans girls.’ [4]

The Safe Schools Alliance, supporting the legal action, says the guidance is ‘in direct opposition to all safeguarding protocols’. [5]

The transgender agenda is being pushed very hard in some quarters, but cases such as these against the Tavistock Centre and Oxfordshire County Council are shining a bright light on some of the flawed thinking that is driving change. We applaud the courage of the women bringing these cases and hope and pray that reason will prevail.